Hostgator Is No Longer a Good Web Host

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I haven’t hosted a website with Hostgator since around 2010 when I decided to move all my websites to Bluehost where I was also hosting a couple of websites.

Because of this, I’ve always stalled on writing a review of the web hosting service but I’ve always known what others were saying about it.

After getting an email from a marketer that I’m following where he ranted about the real time pain of hosting with Hostgator, I decided to use his experience to say what I’ve always wanted to say about Hostgator.

It also reflects the general consensus on Hostgator’s web hosting service as of late.

Before I get into my review of Hostgator, a little on what they offer as a web hosting service.

What Hostgator Offers

Hostgator isn’t much different from a lot of the other web hosting services out there. They offer low cost web hosting that used to be really decent once upon a time.

They still offer low cost web hosting but things have changed in terms of the quality of service.

Hostgator offers:

Web Hosting starting at $3.95/month (single site)

Website hosting starting at $5.95/month (unlimited domains)

Cloud hosting starting at $4.95/month

WordPress hosting starting at $5.95/month

Reseller Plans

VPS servers

Dedicated servers

Domain names

For customer support, you could create a ticket or try getting them on live chat for faster service.

What I Like About Hostgator

If you’re just starting out with a website and need affordable web hosting then Hostgator might be an OK service to go with.

They have easy to use cPanel where you can manage your installs and you also get free credits towards advertising on Google Adwords and Bing.

As you grow your website though, it might be wise to move to a better quality web host as you will see, so maybe it would be best to just go with a better quality web host from the start.

If this was 10 years ago, I’d have filled this section with a lot of things I like about Hostgator but there is not much else that I can say they’re good at at this point.

What I Don’t Like About Hostgator

Hostgator used to be a really good host that had great service, great customer support, stellar uptime and not a lot of problems that would cause you to want to contact them.

But then they got bought out by a company called Endurance International Group (EIG). This same company has bought out a lot of other web hosting companies including Bluehost.

After Hostgator got bought out, their services started to suffer. People have been noticing that EIG for some reason destroys the web hosting companies that they’re buying. Moving to another EIG-owned company makes absolutely no sense since you’re supporting the same parent company.

To this day, I always do my research and avoid EIG-owned companies if I’m searching for a web hosting company or if I’m advising someone shopping for a web host.

Being owned by EIG is the number one thing that I don’t like about Hostgator.

Because of this I don’t like what their services have become.

What’s bad?

increased downtime

bad customer support

miscellaneous hosting related problems

As I said at the beginning, I received an email from a marketer that I was following with the subject line: Real Time Example on Why To NEVER Use Hostgator.

Tim used Hostgator to host his main website (not his money sites) and was using the site to update readers on a project he was doing. Someone noticed that the site was down and contacted him. He ended up spending hours trying to get his site back before they restored an older version of the website that didn’t even have his latest post.

“Hostgator used to be a decent low-priced hosting solution. I have no problems with using this type of host for smaller sites, and then if they grow, you can move them to a better option.

Over the last year or so, HG has slowly started to decay into your typical garbage hosting solution. When it was time to renew, I was so busy with other things I just got kind of lazy and went ahead with it instead moving to a better hosting option.”

He mentioned making three mistakes with Hostgator.

Not moving away after his website started growing.

Not keeping backups

Wasting time trying to get help from Hostgator customer service.

“Also, HG customer service is useless. The live chat is useless. Their social media team is useless. And contacting them through email is useless.

If after 5 minutes you can tell you are basically talking to the wall, even when you get bumped to a supervisor, stop wasting your time.

I am now spending my time moving anything I still have left from HG elsewhere instead to running around in circles with their useless support staff.”

The moral of the story, he continued in the email was to “STAY AWAY FROM HOSTGATOR…FAR FAR AWAY!”

Alternatives to Hostgator

There are hundreds of web hosts to choose from and many of them will do a great job hosting your website. Everyone’s needs are different – you might want to start your first website, someone else might want to host a portfolio of WordPress websites – and there are different services that will cater for your needs.

The service that I recommend is coincidentally the same service Tim is now moving his website to – SiteGround.

SiteGround is a good non-EIG web host that offers very affordable services comparable to the prices Hostgator offered. Ever since I started doing internet marketing, they’ve always had a good reputation that they’ve upheld through the years.

They also have great uptime, fast servers and I haven’t seen any complaints about their customer service.

So if you’re looking for an alternative to Hostgator, I’d recommend that you go with SiteGround.

Would you like to share your experience with Hostgator or discuss their hosting services? Tell me what’s on your mind in the comments below.

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Comments

Hi Jay,
Thanks for the review of Hostgator. My website is not hosted on Hostgator but in the past, I had recommended it to others as a low-cost web hosting service because of the good things I’d heard and read.
That stops now. From now on I’ll be recommending Siteground.
Great article, keep up the good work.
Ed

Yeah, I used to recommend Hostgator as well and I even had a client sign up to them but they ended up contacting me about their site being down for 3 days. I had them contact Hostgator because they’d have to give the last 4 digits of their credit card to verify their account with support. They ended up moving the website without even consulting me. If they had I wouldn’t have let them move it to FatCow which is also under EIG.

Thats a very interesting perspecive on the hosts that go into building your website. Since this is so very important to an internet marketer. I thought maybe your review would be feature based, but it was actually in regards to problems that he biggest companies have: Customer Service and support. This was an excellent article for that reason. When there is a problem such as this seek a solution and you have shown us the best solution alternative to hostgator. Thanks

Hostgator is Ok on features I guess but the reasons I’ve noted above are why I can’t recommend them. If we are to talk about features I’d add that they don’t seem to offer free SSL certificates while most of the other hosts are giving them away to encourage the movement towards a more secure internet.

Take for example my recommended host SiteGround, they offer free SSL certificates on all of their plans. So why is Hostgator still so far behind on this one?

Thank you for this post. I myself am a non-returning client of Host Gator. I believe their headquarters was based in Colorado. I was not aware they were bought out by another company. Seems a lot of small startups get eaten up by bigger businesses.

Thanks for providing other options of hosts that provide better customer service. Is there one you are using right now, or one you like the best?

Actually, I’m using Wealthy Affiliate’s web hosting since I’m a member there but I’ve done my homework and settled on SiteGround as a great alternative to Hostgator and Bluehost both of which I used to host sites with.

I’m still new to online marketing, am now learning how everything works out and so I don’t have any grip with Hostgator.

What would really worry me is when I can’t get a backup of my website in case it breaks down. I also think that this can be avoided by personally backing up your website regularly so that if anything happens one doesn’t have to lose everything especially the latest posts.

For newbies and guys who don’t know much about online marketing, what is your best recommendation of a website host?

And you’re right. This is part of the problem but the real problem is why was the site down in the first place? Why didn’t they notify the owner? Even if they didn’t really provide backups, they’re taking someone’s site offline, shouldn’t they at least have the latest copy of someone’s property just in case? Sure the owner of the site is at fault for not doing a regular backup but the host I’d say is very negligent.

This is mainly what I wanted to point out in this review of Hostgator. I had a similar incident with Bluehost where they identified legitimate comment activity as spam and asked me to have them removed. At that time I didn’t know what database I was deleting and even though I asked I was not explicitly told. I ended up deleting all the comments I had accumulated on this very website (over 1300 of them). I had no backup so I couldn’t restore them.

The host I’m using now is a WordPress managed hosting platform and they do daily backups of my website so I don’t have to worry about those. That is an advertised feature so I trust that I will get a backup if I ever need one.

For newbies and guys who don’t know much about online marketing, you can try Wealthy Affiliate where you will get an online marketing education as well as web hosting and more all in one place or if you just want a web host, my best recommendation is SiteGround as I’ve pointed out in the article.

I used to host my websites with Hostgator – I had used them for many years but then I also started to notice performance problems. After a case with website restore, I also decided to move to some other hosting as I experienced the same issues with Hostgator that you mention in your article. I thought that I had some unfortunate case but now I know that this is a general case and it was a good decision to move to another hosting. I host my websites with Wealthy Affiliate – do you have any experience with them as a host? What is your opinion about them? I like that I get both hosting, service and also a possibility to learn for an affordable price with Wealthy Affiliate.

Actually, I do host with Wealthy Affiliate as well. You can read my opinion here. They’re way better than a lot of web hosts including Hostgator. Daily backups, free SSL, lightning speed support and more.

I’ve personally have had my bad stream of luck when it comes to website host providers, but to be honest, I’ve only tried hostgator once and that was a long time ago. I personally use Wealthy Affiliates for all my website hosting because of the education and support that you get with them.

Thanks for sharing this review on Hostgator. I remember a saying – Building trust is tough. Sustaining it is even tougher. The reason, I say this is that I feel it’s true in the Hostgator’s case.
Even I had heard of this name long back – when it had a good reputation. Now I see from your review that it has lost its reputation as it had earlier, by downgrading their service. Thanks for sharing and alerting.

That’s a good saying and is definitely the case here with Hostgator. I used to feel good referring them to people who needed hosting but with their current state, I wouldn’t risk my own reputation. Thanks for commenting.

Wow, Hostgator sounds like an absolute nightmare. I have in the past used different hosting platforms that have all these problems that you are speaking of here. And bad customer service has just made me give the whole thing up.
Siteground seems so much better, so thank you for the informative article that will come in very handy for future reference. A good web hosting platform is worth its weight in gold.

This is a bummer. I have been very frustrated with seeing some of these large corporations buy out smaller companies and destroying them. This seems like another example of that. Especially, considering the fact that their customer service is so terrible. It is such a bummer that another company that offered good web hosting but has been brought down by the ownership of a larger corporation.

I have heard of Hostgator, but I have no experience with them. Cheaper isn’t always better. You usually get what you pay for. If you’re trying to run an online business you want to make sure you use a good host, even if it means spending a little more. It’s hard to make money when your website is down. My sites are hosted at Wealthy Affiliate, and I have never had any problems (knock on wood).

You’re right but for someone just starting out with a website, it’s usually enough for them. However, a good web host should allow for you to grow and reevaluate your needs and be there to meet them without hassle. But I definitely get your point. Wealthy Affiliate is different in that it is a fully managed WordPress-only web host whereas Hostgator has different plans for all types of websites (Magento, Joomla, etc).

Thanks for this blog, it’s an eye opener! I was recommended to Hostgator by a friend and have a site with them. While I was setting up the site, I hit a snag and it was a painful experience getting support from them.

It’s obvious that Hostgator’s founders started the site with good values, but when EIG bought them, the values changed.

I don’t have much experience with web hosts but will now consider SiteGround. To me one of the most important points is good and accessible support.

Thanks for sharing and recommendation on different web hosting platform. Hostgator was one in my list, hence I found this article useful because I am still sniffing around for a good web hosting platform to host my website. Thanks to the information, it at least gives me more points and checklist to go through before I make my final decision.